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About Be the Next Microsoft Employee (#bethenext)

They’ve got SQL smarts and the certification to prove it. But do they have what it takes to be the next Microsoft employee?Watch the challenges unfold on our website beginning July 24, 2012: http://aka.ms/bethenext

The Ferry

What an awesome day, and what a beautiful part of our Country. We went for a trip on the ferry! I think it was the Bainbridge Ferry. The weather was simply amazing. If you have ever spent a summer in Texas, then you know what the heat is like. The fact that I actually got cold during the month of July is an accomplishment in and of itself. And the Olympic mountains are a breathtaking sight when one is used to flat land all around. We don't even have proper hills where I live.

We had a challenge on the ferry and I presented our findings to the judges. We were supposed to have thirty minutes, but it ended up being more like fifteen, to determine as a team the root of the problem. Only upon beginning the presentation to the judges did I realize that we had discussed a number of possibilities, but we never formed a consensus on what the issue was…Doh! Too late now. Oh, man, it was so bad. If it wasn’t bad enough to be embarrassed in front of the judges, all of my colleagues, friends and family get to witness my failure when the show airs. Niiiiice.

I couldn't wait to get back to the house. We had a lovely dinner and looked forward to a nice, quiet evening, but before we could even start desert, guess who let himself in and proceeded to ruin our evening?

Yes, Mr. Buck Woody himself.

When he opened the door, I could hear a song playing far off in the distance. Only a snippet of lyrics followed him into the house “…been around for a long, long year stole many a man’s soul and faith…” before he shut the door behind him. (Didn’t he say his mother’s name was Rosemary?) This was in no way good for us. He gave us the final challenge, and my, my, it is a good one: Global company, web app, pii data, 300 databases geographically dispersed running a different rdbms needs a data warehouse solution. Present to the business executives in the a.m.

Remember when your English teacher taught you that two negatives create a positive? “I couldn’t not look at the tangled mess” means you looked at it, right? So, with that same train of thought in mind, can you think of a time when two positives create a negative? Don’t worry. I’ll wait.

Can’t think of one? Well, how about this? When Buck told us to not stay up all night working on the challenge, I thought to myself, “Yeah, right.”